I think you should go look at them if possible. That could be a gorgeous crystal like vein and could be beautiful or it might be ugly ;)

Pictures of granite just don't cut it!

just find another source for the slabs, not too picky.

I'd love to see a pic of that. Even harder to judge by verbal description, lol.

I really would go see all of the slabs in person and not judge them by photos. It is just too big of a purchase to do anything else in my opinion. A trip to the stone yard is always a treat! :)

Ooohh,

I am excited to see someone else mention tropical brown granite. I installed it this summer on my glazed creamy white cabinets and I love it. Mine has a lot of black and grayish/greenish brown to offset the warm orangy brown.

I specifically chose it because it is tight and uniform. I don't care for big swirly patterns. I would not want the big vein running through mine because I wanted the tight uniformity of the granite.

It depends on what you want and like. I would definitely look at it in person. My slab was not the exact same color as the "swatch" they gave me to take home. I even took my cabinet door with me to compare it to the slabs to ensure I liked it.

Who knows, you may see something else you like better.

I did look at the top slab in person. The "splotch" of the vein on the top piece was very dull black/gray, not at all the rich color of the other. I loved it...just didn't know about that vein running through the others. Irishcreamgirl, your tropic brown sounds just like I want...lots of the black/grayish green to offset the orange brown. For some reason, all the stone yards are saying that they don't get much of that color anymore...mostly the caramel tropic brown. I will keep looking this week.

Selecting slabs of natural stone are often emotional purchases and most people will say when you find the right slab, you know what you have found. If youâÂÂre having doubts then go back and look at them in person and bring some tangibles with you (like a cabinet door or tile). In my opinion, tropic brown should not have veins, if itâÂÂs first choice material it will be clean; however, one could expect a few ý dollar sized inclusions (dark mineral clusters) but other than that they should have very little variation within the slab.
Shop wisely,
Caayu

That's why you need to look at all the slabs you're buying. Some places tell you if they're from the same batch they're all the same like slices of bread - but as you found out that's not the case. If you're not happy with the slabs, don't use them!

I went to a different granite yard today and found some "clean" tropical brown that had already been tagged. They are sending more over from a store in a nearby city tomorrow. Back I go tomorrow to check them out. Thanks everyone for encouraging me not to settle on something that I wasn't 100% sure of! The sales person said that the 2010 lots of tropical brown are darker than the 2009'(more black/darker brown instead of caramel). I thought that was interesting.

You might also look at manufactured quartz. Several manufacturers have colors "inspired" by Tropic Brown. It meets your color consistancy requirements quite well. We have a display of Brazillian Brown Silestone and most non TKO people cannot tell it from granite. It's also very similarly priced. There's only a couple of dollars difference between the two colors.